The Ungodly Hour
by Kit Kat Karma
Summary: He did not know exactly why terrorists were attacking, but he hoped it was not for the same reason that AVALANCHE rose to action against ShinRa four years ago. Eventual M and Reefie


The Ungodly Hour

_Eventual Reefie_

**I. Before the Worst**

* * *

The wind rustled on the newly threadbare trees. The leafless trees gave the grounds a solemn and barren look. However, life continued in the Kalm Park, despite the look of park.

He felt that his mood fit in with the park's appearance. His grimace looked even more forlorn with his thinning face and his now seasoned locks. If his stress continued at the alarming rate that it was, his hair would no longer be the lovely brown tresses salted with grey, it would be completely grey.

He stopped his walk and settled on an older, worn park bench. The bench he picked had an excellent view of the surrounding area and it would be a quaint spot to sip his morning tea. It would allow him to relax and mull over his problems.

Reeve Tuesti had always been one to multitask.

He placed his tea down beside him and rubbed his hands together. Maybe if he sat there long enough the answer would come to him. He knew it was highly unlikely, but he was willing to give it a shot.

After awhile of mulling it over, he rubbed his temples to fend off a pending headache. He did not need one even before he reported into the WRO. Though he knew once he arrived at headquarters, he would get a headache from all the forms, data, death threats, and terrorist updates.

The latter was the cause of most of his stress. Terrorism was on the rise in the outer cities such as Edge, Junon, Mideel, and even the rising town of Condor. He did not know exactly why terrorists were attacking, but he hoped it was not for the same reason that AVALANCHE rose to action against ShinRa four years ago.

He rose, it was his responsibility to figure out what the terrorists wanted and even more so to fix it.

* * *

"Reeeevieeee?" was the shrill noise that woke him from what was some much needed rest. He shook his head and pushed himself up into a more respectable position. He tried his best to focus on the person who created the shrill (he had a good guess), but had to wait for his eyes to adjust. When his eyes did, he noticed that the culprit was not alone, but had brought her partner with her.

"Good afternoon, Yuffie, Vincent, what brings both of you to Kalm?" He asked as he carefully adjusted his tie and vest.

Vincent Valentine was an enigma to most, but in the right light, he almost seemed human. Normally that light was Yuffie Kisaragi. She happened to be the one that would make sure that he did not drift on his own and become what he was four years ago.

They made a lovely team, minus the fact that they bickered like Jenova-come. They exchanged looks and Vincent began what could become a monolog, "We were in the area and thought that would like to see some pictures that Yuffie took as she was following me around."

She wrinkled her nose, "I wasn't following you! I was doing my job and keeping your ass out of trouble!" She paused, "He got us detained at Kalm International Airdock! That's how much trouble he is!"

He gave her a look that spoke for him. She snarled, "Yes, you, trouble. Fucking follows you."

Reeve rubbed his temples; Yuffie and Vincent were another cause of headaches. The pair seemed ready to fight over something, no matter the size.

Reeve grimaced and then spoke harshly, "The pictures; stay focused." Yuffie nodded and placed the pictures on his lap. She moved quickly, he did not even notice that the envelope was not only in his lap it was slowly slipping to the floor. He caught it with a steady hand and opened the top flap.

"Yuffie, tell me before I look at these photos…where are they from?" She opened her mouth to articulate, but stopped. "Yuffie?"

Vincent threw his head back in frustration, "Nemaha, south of Cosmo Canyon it is a small town off the coast." Vincent and Reeve exchanged a look. Reeve knew he was not going to like the pictures that he would see. He looked at Yuffie one last time. She seemed to be biting a nail to keep from speaking.

She sighed and spoke quickly, "At least it was a town." Reeve stopped at her words and realized something. He remembered that this was how it started before. He rubbed his forehead in aggravation.

He removed the hand from his forehead and made a quick, jittery motion. "Vincent, were there any survivors?" Vincent outstretched his hand to the envelope, as to say, 'See for yourself, sir.'

His hands trembled as he pulled the first picture from the sheath. He had no idea how heavy paper could be, especially when you are dreading the worse. He pulled the first photograph up and took a long look at it before letting out a defeated cry. He put the picture back down in his lap.

"Reeve…?" Yuffie's voice wavered and he could see her moving towards him. However, Vincent blocked her from coming near. "Vincent, we have to help him…he looks like he's about to die, or pass out." Leave it to Yuffie to put the worst first.

He spoke slowly and harshly, "Let him be for a few seconds. He is processing the image." Reeve did not move his head, but looked at Yuffie and Vincent. It would have been nice to outstretch some kind of comfort. He could feel his body rocking as he took shallow breaths. He wanted to be strong, but the image would not let him.

"Vincent, Yuffie…if you could so kindly take this to the nearest task-force and give them the location…I'm sure they will know how to deal with such…" He trailed off. The picture that shook him, he could not form words about it. It looked as if an angry fire ripped though the small plains town. Then it seemed every person that survived the char of the flames then faced their death. He did not know what killed the survivors of the flames, but it did not look like gunshots, the picture was far too bloody. Reeve did not know who, or even what, did this to a small town. A town had nothing to do with the WRO.

"Reeve are you going to be okay?" Yuffie asked as she took the pictures from his hands and put them back in the envelope. He gave her a weak nod and stood.

Vincent watched him with keen eyes, this shook Reeve. Vincent looked at him as if he knew that he was going to falter. Reeve sighed and walked towards his desk.

The desk was once a beautiful mahogany wood, but it seemed to transform into a desk of paper and discarded coffee cups. He picked at a new stack that had made its way from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety. He sighed and leaned on the desk, it would keep him standing even if he could no longer. Yuffie fiddled with the envelope and then handed it to Vincent.

He was not even sure what this meant, but he watched as she walked over to Reeve. Vincent crossed his arms and studied as she paused and tried to figure out something to say. He knew it would be something to try to calm his frayed nerves.

After many passed moments she had not moved. It was obvious that the ninja was shockingly at a loss for words. Vincent spoke quietly, "Yuffie…let us go." He paused, "Reeve needs rest. I'll arrange for someone to take his position while he rests."

She shook her head, "Vince, hold on a second." She had only taken her gaze from Reeve for a second and he had managed to reach his desk chair. He seemed to be sitting rather stiffly in it, despite the fact that he leaned his head over the back. She shook her head at the soft snores and grabbed some of the files off his desk.

"What are you doing?" Vincent asked rather sternly. She shot the enigmatic man a smile. He frowned deeply and crossed his arms. "No."

She smiled again. "It says here that the terrorism in Edge has spiked by forty percent, I say we check it out."

Vincent shook his head. "Yuffie can we discuss this somewhere else?" Yuffie looked over her shoulder and nodded. For once, she was going to admit that Vincent was right, Reeve needed to rest and arguing in his office was not going to help him.

* * *

Vincent Valentine was not a patient man. However, at some point in time he learned that he needed to be somewhat tolerant towards his partner of a year, Yuffie Kisaragi. The polar opposites were together as partners due to two matters. The first was that nobody was fond of working with either of them and the second was because they kept each other out of danger.

However, as he stalked down the long hallway he was very infuriated with his partner. She was planning for full-scale security not only on Reeve Tuesti, but on Rufus ShinRa as well. He had no idea why Rufus needed protection; he had all four of his Turks.

He continued to stalk down the hallway, until he reached a small office. He had to walk back and look in to make sure that his eyes were not playing tricks on him. He waited a second and then spoke, "Yuffie…"

She held up a finger and placed it to her lips. He was stunned, not only was the young ninja in her office, but she was doing paperwork while being on the phone. He ducked in and shut the sliding glass door behind him. She waved him over to a stack of papers.

He frowned; he disliked paperwork almost as much as he disliked the smoky smell on the Shera. However, he leaned down to the desk and picked up the stack. It looked like results from a test lab or even election results. She mouthed, 'Read them,' and returned to her phone call.

He looked down at the printed stack and dreaded them, but if Yuffie found them important to the 'investigation' she was conducting, then he would read them.

He flipped past the first page and began to read about a past election. He hoped to Gaia that the terrorist were not after a political figure. He continued reading about the controversial election in Edge. There was a machine rigged for the election, the machine supposedly built by the WRO, and after several court dates the judge ruled the accusation as false. The machine was not built by the WRO, but by a company in Nibelheim called Alcor.

Vincent stopped reading; he now knew that someone tried to rig an election and blame it on the WRO. He knew if the judge had ruled the accusations about the WRO as true there would be mass uprisings against the WRO, AVALANCHE, and Reeve.

He found it odd that the very detailed report had left out the candidates of the election. He opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by the ninja. She had wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear. The person on the phone had her attention for the moment.

He sighed and flipped the page coming across a very disturbing fact in the case.

* * *

Reeve awoke with a sore neck. He rotated his neck and popped it. The nap was something that he definitely had needed. He was glad that he fell asleep. However, when his computer chimed out the time and date to him he growled.

His rest had cut into the time he could have used to file and correct some very important files. He sighed and looked over his desk, and he then realized his files were missing. He rubbed his temples; three very important documents now were missing from his office. These documents covered what was turning out to be the worst airliner crash in twenty years.

He stopped rubbing his temples and dialed his assistant. "Karolina?" he asked weakly over the intercom.

"_Sir?_" Was her automatic response.

"Can you find Shelke and send her to my office?"

"_Madame Rui is in a SND dive for the Wutaian Government until six. Would you like me to send somebody else instead like Princess Kisaragi?" _He chuckled slightly at Karolina's worried tone.

He spoke carefully, "No, no. Just run a memo to her SND, maybe she'll be able to help from the SND." He waited for Karolina to snort at his stubbornness and could imagine the older woman rolling her eyes at him.

"_Of course sir. Just remember you meet with the Board of Governors in about an hour." _

He sighed angrily and spoke harshly, "How could I forget. They have been protesting the Edge election for two weeks now!"

"_Maybe they have come to term with who will be joining them on the Board tomorrow?"_

He sighed again, "Thank you Karolina for your optimism. It is much needed these days, but I think the Governors will protest their new colleague until he is removed by office by force or he steps down."

"_Anything else sir?"_

"That will be all Karolina and Happy Birthday." He removed his finger from the red intercom button. He smiled smally; impressed that he remembered his aid's birthday despite all the attacks.

The line crackled to life once more, _"But there are not many things today to be happy about, but thank you very much, sir." _ Her spindly voice died away for the last time.

He turned his chair away from the computer and the intercom and began to think. The attacks had gotten worse in the last thirty days. There was not much to be happy about these days either, the stock and bond exchange had taken a dive since the election in Edge. Many people had lost their homes and jobs.

Then fifteen days ago it began to worse, two of his employees contracted a virus that the Mideel Medical and Social Health Department identified as Anthrax. The virus was rare on Gaia and Reeve was sure that who ever had sent the letters not only wanted him dead, but they also wanted the Edge governor successor dead as well.

He looked out the large bay window in his office. As he watched the sky in complete solitude, he watched as it turned from blue, to gold, to pink.

However, he was disturbed from his thoughts byKarolina. The older woman was standing in the doorway, tapping her foot rapidly. The scowl on her face reminded her of one that his mother once wore. He rose instantly and adjusted his suit.

"How do I look?"

Her frown remained at his light heartedness, "Dashing as always, sir."

"You are paid to say that aren't you?"

She adjusted his tie as he walked over to her. "Of course I am, sir." She stepped back and looked him over. "Well, that may be the best I can do."

He ran a hand through his hair, "It should be alright." She gave him a strict look and handed him a file. "Huh?" That was his intelligent response as they both started their decent to the meeting room on the fifteenth floor.

"This is the file about the meeting, it has their appeal in it, and it seems they have a lawyer working with them that represented Alcor in the lawsuit a month ago." She was following behind him carefully, trying not to miss a pace.

He nodded and pressed the button to open the elevator, "And?"

"Governor Hamas' secretary called and said that he and his family left from Mideel Airdock this morning and will not be back until late." She folded her hand and spoke once more, "Madame Rui has changed the threat level for Airliners and Airdocks to Code Red." He knew that Karolina did not like Shelke having control over all things electronic (which sometimes included Cait Sith). He also knew that is why she spitted the sentence out so harshly.

However, he wanted to groan at the idea of Code Red. Much panic and hysteria would ensue from the change due to the broadcasting companies. Instead, he paid little mind and got in the elevator focusing on the file in his hand, "Anything else Karolina?"

"Yes sir, Rufus ShinRa has just arrived."

The elevator doors slammed shut.

* * *

Reeve was surprised to see Yuffie and Vincent sitting in the meeting room. Vincent normally stayed away from gatherings over two and Yuffie flinched at the aspect of any kind of meeting. The free spirit gave him a thumbs up as he sat in his seat. Vincent Valentine, however, seemed to be trying to point something out to Yuffie and she was ignoring him.

Reeve nodded to the both of them and then turned his attention to Markel Delius, the Governor of Kalm, "Good to see you again Markel." The balding man smiled as the CEO of WRO greeted him. The man rose and shook Reeve's hand.

"Good to see you again Reeve, ma boy." Then he paused, "But, so terrible to see you for this again. You must be worn at hearing our complaints."

Reeve laughed, "I am, but I need to listen to everyone. It is my job." Markel shook his head and returned to his seat. Reeve placed his files on the table and almost everybody looked at him.

"Good evening. It will be a second before we are online with the SND portal, but until then I see no reason not to start." He paused and looked over the Governors. He was shocked to see a young man from Wutai as a representative. He must have been sent just to watch, because Wutai had put up no fuss about the election before.

Reeve opened the folder and pulled out a disk, "Why don't you start, Rudolphus?" The pug-like man glared at Reeve.

His sick wheezy voice pierced the air, "You know why we are here, Tuesti." Reeve popped the disk into a slot on the side of the table. The screen flicked to life and he pointed to the chat.

"I have been over this several times with all of you, my data team and I have crunched the data in several different compounds. We used different computers and different polling stations." He paused and let the chart flick to the next slide. He pointed to the set of numbers on the screen and from the corner of his eye saw both Yuffie and Vincent yawn.

The men at the table looked over their charts in the file pamphlet. Rudolphus Lestrange did not. He just looked at the graphs on the slides. He waited and watched carefully. When Reeve pulled up an Alcor voting poll slide he spoke, "That data is tampered with! You must throw it away and consider the new polls in Edge!"

Reeve stopped the slides, "We tripled checked all the data in our backup files. Then we went to Alcor and they promised that their materials are conclusive. Plus Shelke triple checked her numbers in comparison to Alcor's!"

"How do we know that Madame Rui's numbers are not tampered with. You said last time we met that she had complete control over almost everything electronic." Lestrange pointed out with beady eyes.

Reeve retaliated, "Everything but Cait Sith and my private computer."

Lestrange asked again, "Could she gain access to those systems?"

Reeve was taken aback, thought for a minute, and then spoke, "I suppose so…" Lestrange smiled smugly and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Yuffie slamming her hands on the table.

Yuffie glared at their frustration with each other and stood, "Get the hell over it Lestrange! So somebody you dislike is coming into office tomorrow! Big deal, right now I feel that we need to focus on a bigger problem!" Yuffie growled in the direction of Rudolphus Lestrange. Vincent pulled on the back of her shirt to almost say 'sit down, now.'

"Get you hand off me Vincent! I am taking care of things now." She yelled at him. He removed his hand and leaned back in his chair. "Tomorrow night is the Inauguration Ceremony for Edge. I know none of you will be there, but I feel that the terrorists that have been attacking your towns will be."

Markel folded his hands, "And what do you suppose we do, Madame?"

"We need protection for Reeve and the new Governor." She paused, "Reeve will be swearing him in at seven Edge time. So I suggest for the next few hours we put together a team to protect him." She smiled at her suggestion. The governors mostly agreed. Reeve was proud of Yuffie's hard work. Hopefully, a governor would raise the notion.

The governor from Costa del Sol spoke, "All for the notion of creating a task force to protect CEO Tuesti?"

Hands flew into the air. It was no contest. Reeve was getting a security detail. He was not very surprised. He had always been popular among the governor board. He had been invited to many things with all the governors over the years.

The tan skinned governor from Costa spoke again, "Then you are in charge of creating this force I suppose?" He pointed to Vincent gingerly. The gunslinger nodded lazily. Reeve smirked as Vincent agreed to control the security for him. The enigmatic gunslinger shied away from responsibility, Reeve was glad that Vincent had accepted this role.

Yuffie spoke again; pricing the chatting air, "I also think that we need to create a team to surround the new governor. It is only fair. I'll even pose as his wife or something if necessary, but if he is killed tomorrow there will be a major uproar in the city of Edge."

The board broke out into shouts. They yelled loudly at her and at the cool headed Vincent Valentine. The current incumbent of Condor yelled at her loudly, "Why should we do anything for him! All he has done is brought misery to our homes!"

Lestrange rose to his feet with the aid of his cane. Rudolphus Lestrange growled at the woman, "See my fellows! This is what Reeve Tuesti does to wrenches like her! He brainwashes them into thinking that this man is good! We must remove both of them from power at once!"

Vincent then took it upon himself, seeing that both Yuffie and Reeve were stunned at Lestrange's accusations. "Governor Lestrange, I am not one to get involved with political issues." He paused and all eyes were on the risen gunslinger, "But I believe that Madame Kisaragi is correct and we should all give her a fair chance to speak her mind before jumping to radical conclusions of removing Reeve from power at the WRO. Without Reeve Tuesti, the WRO would fall apart. Now please shut the fuck up and return to your seat before I forcefully remove you from this room." He sent one glare around the room before adjusting his cloak and returning to his seat quietly.

Rudolphus stiffened and then finally sat back down quietly. The room remained quite, still quite shaken from the gunslinger's outburst.

Yuffie shuffled her papers, "I think we should protect him because if he dies, then one of you may be next, then the whole chain will fall apart. Finally they will go after Reeve and their will be no order left. Would we want that? Plus the whole thing that Edge will go to hell in a hand basket if he's killed." The silence was her response, "That's what I though. I will be in charge of this task unit and will even go as far as posing as his wife." She let out a breath and looked at the wide-eyed group.

Reeve watched as she took control. He felt a slight pang of sadness when she said that she would pose as a wife if necessary. He looked over at the grubby Rudolphus; the man seemed to be pondering something.

Vincent spoke loudly and hastily, "Yuffie did you even read the Governor File?" She glared at him. He glared back, "If you don't know what you are getting into, don't promise things!" She rolled up her files and raised it to smack him over the head. However, Reeve coughed loudly.

"Yuffie, please. Not now." Reeve pleaded. The woman glared at him and unrolled her sheets of paper. She looked at Rudolphus. He leaned over to his aid. The aid spoke in hushed tones to him.

"All for the motion of protecting the new Governor, if Madame Kisaragi poses as the fiancée of the successor of Governess Marie Booth say I." A silence fell over the crowd. Reeve gulped.

He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that someone would attempt to assassinate both he and the governor before the oath began. Reeve was almost sure that the man had his own security detail, but he was not so sure of their skill. The last time they had to fight in real combat was two years ago in Sephiroth's Wake.

Reeve looked at Markel. Markel saw the distress in his friend's eyes. Markel raised his hand grudgingly. When the others saw that Markel Delius had raised the notion they quickly followed in suit.

Yuffie let out a cry of joy and she quickly pulled Vincent to his feet to give him an awkward victory hug. She bounded around the table and pulled Reeve into an embrace as well. "I have so much information that you need to know. We could really catch these guys. Vincent and I have crunched all the raw data and stuff thanks to Shelke."

She released Reeve out of her iron clad grip when Rudolphus coughed and stood. The greasy man leaned on a cane and smiled sickly at her. "What do you want from me now Lestrange?"

She felt the doors to the room open and someone step in. She saw Vincent growl at whoever was behind her. Finally she heard Rudolphus Lestrange say in his squeaky, sickly voice, "I would like you to turn around and meet your fiancée."

She straightened herself and smiled smugly at Rudolphus. However, that smiled faded when she saw Rufus Shinra standing in the doorway, leaning on a wooden cane.

* * *

Good, bad, Meh?

3 Kit Kat Karma


End file.
